Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Myth of Male Feminism

It’s time for the few men who call themselves feminists to
stop.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t support the rights of women.
It means the feminist label isn’t meant for us. Asking a man to call himself a
feminist is like asking a woman to wear an athletic cup. It’s just not meant to
be.

Furthermore, the men who are claiming to be feminists are
either acting out of fear of being labeled sexist or are trying to get
laid. Either way they are full of shit.

I think you’d find it hard to paint me as a woman-hating
ogre. I have a wife and two daughters and my last three bosses at work have
been women. I have no problem working with women and I would fight to the death
to make sure my baby girls are treated fairly.

But feminism as practiced today demands an illogical
accounting of the genders in the world and assumes what is dictated by nature is actually the
result of some patriarchal conspiracy. And it assumes men and women are equal
in all things, which is false. If men and women were equal in all things, I’d
be able to breastfeed my two girls, and I can’t.

The adoption of the tem “feminist” by men is by design
awkward and one-sided. It’s a label not meant for men to ever use and asking
men to identify as such belies the supposed egalitarian intent of the feminist
movement as it exists today. We are told feminism means treating men and women
equally. Women who believe in treating men and women equally don’t call
themselves “masculists.” That would be ridiculous. And so are men who call
themselves feminists.

We have to acknowledge that there are differences between
the genders that will dictate how each is treated in society. That’s not
sexism, that’s reality.

If I were to walk into a women’s restroom, the women in
there would not welcome me as an equal being. They would tell me in no
uncertain terms that I was in the wrong place. (Although now the idea of “gender neutral bathrooms” are
supposed to be catching on. It may be a trend on some college campuses, but
females will put a stop to that quickly if it ever picks up steam in the real
world).

Treating men and women equally under the law might make
sense to a certain degree, but then again, the law will run face-first into
scientific reality. Should I be entitled to the same amount of parental leave
as my wife? No. Women can feed babies with their own bodies. Men can only do that
if they have vampire children. There are legitimate functions in society where
gender differences have to be acknowledged in some way and this has often run
afoul of the contemporary feminist movement.

Feminism as practiced today has shed its heritage of
fighting for suffrage and has instead joined the tired fray of identity
politics. What this needless war between
the sexes has given us is a certain segment of the female population who
mistake rudeness for assertiveness and then pull the gender card when they get
called on it. It’s also produced a large number of men who are afraid to be
called sexist or else have a confused notion of what women want. In reality, women
want strong men.

The men who identify as feminists are a parade of either
self-emasculating depressives or fast-talking pickup artists.

Believe me, the men who are playing the feminist card are trying to get laid. For the most
part it won’t work, and the men who tout themselves as male feminists do so
because they are in some way shy or awkward around women and they think that
perhaps appearing in this activist posture will get them some positive
attention from women. That is mostly doomed to failure because men and women
don’t choose their mates by their political stances. Even the most outwardly
feminist straight woman still wants a man with a level of self-confidence that
would often preclude him adopting the feminist label.

But the men who call themselves feminists and are successful
with women treat those women like dog shit. I have had acquaintances who were
adamant about declaring their feminist politics publicly but then spoke in the
most vulgar terms about their conquests of women when there were no women
present.

One way or another, all male feminists are frauds. I will
gladly fight for the rights of women. But I can’t be a feminist, because I am a
man.

About Me

I write a column called 'Notes from a Polite New Yorker' as well as short stories and poems. My column appears monthly in Kotori Magazine and my writing has appeared in GetUnderground.com, Knot Magazine, The Black Table, Too Square, and other web sites and print publications.